Englefield Estate

Continuing from the recent post about my family connection to Englefield village and church I've found some photos in my archive sent to me Daughter some time ago of a walk she and her friends took in aid of the Sue Ryder Hospice at Nettlebed, near to Henley-on-Thames (now the South Oxfordshire Palliative Care Hub).  The Benyon family who live in Englefield House are benefactors and supporters of many local organisations and they had opened up the grounds for this event. On a day in May it was raining just as when we went there last weekend, but daughter D managed to take some photos whilst walking through the estate with the group.  There were glimpses of the house and gardens as they passed by them. The photos give an idea of the parkland although they are somewhat dark because of the bad light.

in the distance there was a herd of deer

magnificent mature trees

Englefield House

Englefield means Fields of the Angles due to the fact that a battle was fought here on the land in 871 AD between the Saxons and the Danes.  The Englefield family were sheriffs and knights of the shire throughout the Middle Ages.  Sir Thomas Englefield was the Speaker in Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII whilst Sir Edward spent his time enlarging the house and making a garden.  He entertained Queen Elizabeth to dinner in his house. The first Benyon to live there was Richard Benyon in the 18th century and Richard Fellowes Benyon restored both the house and the village as a model estate village where he modernised the cottages and farm buildings. He worked with the architect Gilbert Scott to improve the village church. (Some notes taken from the Englefield Estate website and a chapter on local history in 'And So To Bath' by Cecil Roberts).

 As an estate worker my great grandfather lived with his family for many years in the small village and I found the cottage where they lived. I was told that he was a gardener although in later life records show that he was a dairyman so he may have worked in this area of farming life at Englefield. 

a  large kitchen garden area in the village - opposite is a garden centre within a walled garden 

St Mark's Church

Next time I really will post about the church interior.

Friday Bliss # 26

Tuesday was Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) and although I knew the recipe for making a pancake batter I got out an old cookery book just to check the quantities of flour, milk and egg so that I could make a small number of pancakes (two each) just for myself and Mr P.

Even though it's cooler after the recent warm weather more Spring flowers are in bloom.  Last night there was a hard frost.  I hope that more frosty nights won't damage the blossom and the developing fruit on the fruit trees. 

We're usually over in Italy during March, but this year we're staying home in the UK and enjoying family times here. In Italy the mimosa blossom will be out in profusion.  I love the bright yellow of the pretty, fluffy balls that are the flowers and the feathery green leaves.  

Today is International Women's Day. In Italy Mimosa is given to women on this day as a gesture of friendship and solidarity. Happy Women's Day to my women blog friends.  It's important to support the endeavour to make life better for women around the world.

Joining Riitta's Friday Bliss linkup today

Thank you Riitta for organising the linkup

Englefield, Berkshire

Hello. Thank you for coming by. Do you like researching family history?  I do and I've found out so much of interest about my family in the process. I had a head start as my mother had collected a lot of information and then I did a course at our local library on family history research and added more details. Two cousins on different lines of my family have also contributed to my knowledge.

Today I'm sharing a little about my great grandfather Alfred (my father's maternal family line) who was born in the county of Wiltshire where some of my ancestors came from.  I can trace them back to the 16th century because I have a special document of heredity which has been passed down the generations.  (More about that another time).  Great Grandpa Alfred moved over the county border to West Berkshire and settled in Englefield where he was an agricultural worker on the Englefield Estate.  He married, but by the time he was 28 years old his wife, Harriet, had died. He then married my great grandmother, Mary Anne (Annie) who came from a nearby village. My grandmother, Helen May, was their first child and the couple went on to have 7 children, although two tragically died when they were children within the space of two months in 1893, probably from something as simple as influenza which in those days could prove to be fatal without our modern-day medical treatments.

One of my great granduncles, Charles, stayed in West Berkshire in nearby Bucklebury and I well remember visiting him in his cottage on Bucklebury Common when I was a child in the 1950s.  He must have been in his 70s by then.

After his wife Annie died in 1927 Gt Grandpa Alfred moved to Little Sandhurst in south east Berkshire to be near his grown up children, Albert Richard and Rose Amy. (Rose married someone from this community. My parents and I often visited them and I'm still in touch with great Aunt Rose's younger son). My grandmother Helen May and her husband followed the Methodist movement of Christianity and my father became a Methodist lay preacher so it was natural to go to Sandhurst for special church events at the Methodist Church near to where GtAunt Rose lived and my Dad would preach on these occasions.

Great Grandpa Alfred at GtAunt Rose's wedding (1932)

On the right is my grandmother Helen May and on the left is

 her oldest daughter, my Aunt Doris and Aunt Doris's only daughter, Rita.

By this time Alfred lived in Sandhust and was being looked after by his son, Albert.
  Helen was the oldest of the seven children and Rose Amy was the youngest

so there was quite a difference in age between the sisters.

Back to Englefield Church where Alfred and Mary Anne were married....

By the time we got there it had stopped raining.  I regret not taking photos of the church then as when we came out an hour later the rain was pouring down. Today I'll show you the Estate and outside of the church and tomorrow I'll post about the inside as there are a lot of photos.

Englefield House, for many years

 the family seat of the Benyons

primroses along the path up to the church

snowdrops under the trees

a standing cross and the lychgate on the right

looking towards the church from Englefield House

Our daughter has promised to take me back sometime to visit the church yard.  The memorials inside the church are very interesting and it's a beautiful place of worship. Do come back and take a look when next I write about it. 

A time away

The River Thames Promenade, Reading, Berkshire

We've just got back from a few days away in my home town where we were staying with our daughter.  The weather was not too good and by the Sunday when we went to see our grandson at the riverside hotel where he and some of the guests had been staying for the night after his birthday party celebration it had started to rain. Of course this didn't deter the swans and other water birds from swimming up to see if we had any food for them. 

The Reading Rowing Club boat house

Across the river is Caversham Court Gardens

and St. Peter's Church.

After saying goodbye to our grandson we took our daughter out into the countryside in West Berkshire as I wanted to visit a church where my great grandparents were married - more about the party and days out-and-about in Berkshire next time.